Sunday, February 24, 2008

Tonight I will be babysitting. And at exactly 7:45 pm I will force the children to go to their beds so I will be able to get ready to start enjoying the Oscars. I know I’ll miss most of the red carpet festivities, but I can get all that stuff by flipping through a STAR magazine later this week. What I’m really pumped for is the winners. The Oscars are really exciting for me for some reason. I’m not really invested personally in any of the nominations, but I’m just curious to see who will reign supreme this year, especially after reading all the coverage on the event in Entertainment Weekly and other various news outlets. And I like to predict the winners. This year I will do so publicly, mostly because none of my roommates wanted to throw $5 down for a little Oscar prediction showdown. So, in my mind, the winners will be…

BEST ACTOR – easy schmeezey. Daniel Day-Lewis. And I didn’t even see that movie yet.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Javier Bardem – No Country For Old Men – he plays the really creepy dude masterfully.

BEST ACTRESS - Gonna go with Marion Cotillard – La Vie En Rose; although for some reason I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a little Juno winner, Ellen Page…

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Although Ruby Dee from American Gangster has been sweeping up some other awards in this category, I think Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There will take the trophy.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY) – including this category because I’m currently writing an original screenplay for class, so I know firsthand that it’s not easy to do. Anyway, I gotta go with Juno – Diablo Cody. First time screenwriter. Mad props.

BEST DIRECTOR – Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men.

BEST PICTURE – No Country for Old Men. I’m excusing the ending, which I thought was a pretty terrible digression from an otherwise wonderful story.

And those are the only categories I feel like predicting right now. So lay off me. I’ll leave the rest up to the Academy. And if I get all of these right, someone owes me a beer. Wait, it’s the Oscars. A glass of wine.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Monday, February 04, 2008

Yesterday was the superbowl! What a great time – it was a fantastic game, good triumphed over evil, and we got to see new commercials that are hyped to be super special since they sell for so much. I’ve noticed lately however that superbowl ads haven’t really been delivering over the past few years, this one was no exception. There were some good ads, as always, but there were a bunch that made me wonder why a company would spend the superbowl ad dollars to display a unsuper ad.

Without further ado, here’s my take on the ads of the superbowl 2008:

The Good:

-The Coke spots were great – they always are, Coke does a great job. The democrat/republican spot for Coke Classic was nicely done, and the spot with the floats during the Macy’s day parade was fun to watch and nicely shot. Coke definitely caught the attention of viewers in a positive manner and continued to deliver delightful ads.-E Trade baby spots – they were funny, and made people pay attention. At least in the room I was in, when that commercial started people started paying attention to the tv – and they laughed. The spots were relevant, amusing, drove the message home, and made us laugh. Nicely done.-The Bridgestone spot where the squirrel almost gets hit by a car and screams – and so do a lot of other animals – was cute and funny. And memorable. Makes you giggle. All good things.-Budweiser stuff was mostly good – the Dalmatian training the Clydesdale was nice, inspirational stuff. The ability to breathe fire from Bud Light spot was pretty funny, just because it’s absurd and out of the blue, it works. Also – the spot with Will Ferrell as his character in the upcoming movie “Semi Pro” worked well. I don’t think you can really go wrong with Will Ferrell. So, kudos Bud.

The Bad:-Vitamin water. Shaq riding a horse. In a race. That wasn’t exciting to watch (probably because I didn’t have money on it). Honestly, I would have rather watched him shoot some free throws. And that’s not even good to see. Weird and it didn’t work.-Planter’s Nuts – So an ugly lady walks around and everyone loves her. Wanna know why? Because she rubs Planter’s Nuts all over herself before she leaves the house. Was that the pitch for this commercial? And everyone in the room was like, “Yeah that sounds great!” Too bad no one with a peanut allergy was present during that decision.- Sobe – Dancing lizards with Naomi Campbell? What does that even mean? And Geico should be thanking you, because they didn’t even buy a spot but people are gonna think they did…way to use a character that is more recognizable as some other brand’s property. Just didn’t do it for me.

The Ugly:-SalesGenie.com – I don’t even think I have to explain this one. Stereotypes, no real concept, and poor production value. They should have just thrown their money into a toilet instead of putting these ads on the air.-Under Armor – Didn’t really make much sense. You have such a cool product, and it fits so well with what is happening (the Superbowl?), why don’t you tap into that instead of giving us this weird speech from your high Under Armor horse that reminded me more of someone trying to create a master race than achieve athletic greatness. Poor.-Ice Breakers – It’s like they got the go ahead to put Carmen Electra in their commercial and then panicked because they couldn’t think of anything to do with her. Except have a skinny guy offer her gum. Just didn’t work.